The present invention generally relates to a child lock apparatus which disables a door opening operation made by a door inner handle positioned in a vehicle cabin, so as to prevent an unintentional door opening operation.
When a child sits, for example, in the back seat of an automobile, he or she may manipulate a door inner handle of a door and unintentionally open the door. In order to prevent such an unintentional door opening operation, there is provided a child lock apparatus which disables the door opening operation even if the door inner handle is manipulated from the vehicle cabin side.
Japanese Patent Publication No. H05-61430 (claims and FIG. 4) discloses a conventional child lock apparatus, which includes a child lever for locking and unlocking a child lock. The child lever is provided at one end surface of the door that faces to the vehicle body, and it is connected to a switch (lock release manipulation switch) so that the operating condition of the child lever is outputted to a control circuit (a flip-flop circuit, a first AND gate circuit, a second AND gate circuit, an actuator drive circuit, etc.) in accordance with the ON/OFF signal of the switch. When the child lever is manipulated to lock the child lock, the control circuit supplies an electric current to the actuator to operate the same, so that the door is child-locked and is not opened by the door inner handle.
However, in the above conventional child lock apparatus, the child lever is provided at one end surface of the door that faces to the vehicle body. Therefore, the child lever is not manipulated if the door is closed. In other words, it is necessary to open the door in advance, and thus locking/unlocking the child lock requires complicated operations.
Further, since locking the child lock is manually operated, if the child lock remains inadvertently unlocked by shear mistake, the child lock apparatus does not provide a reliable child lock performance and it allows a child to open the door, by the manipulation of the door inner handle, while the vehicle is running.
In view of the above, the present invention in one preferred mode seeks to provide a child lock apparatus which can reliably child-lock the door during the running of the vehicle.